In 1865, 150 Welsh immigrants escaping from poverty, politics and the prohibition of the Welsh tongue in their schools, sailed into Puerto Madryn in Patagonia. They arrived to find an equally harsh existence with long cold winters and such poor soil they could not farm. Then one of the women settlers devised an irrigation system that changed their lives. Before long they had the best wheat in Argentina. In Gaiman, we meet Marta Rees a descendant of those immigrants and whose family established the first Welsh tearoom in Patagonia. For more information visit www.ontopoftheworld.net and check out episode 42.
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